The Quieter Kingdom
by Batcee
Summary: Drabble 48: Gentle does not apply to this woman scorned... Suspian
1. Beginnings

**The Quieter Kingdom**

1 Beginnings

_"This opportunity is better than the last one…"_

God, she hates it. God, how she hates it! What is this place? Certainly not her Narnia; certainly not the beautiful land which cradled her and her siblings for years beyond their years.

This place is wild and broken. It acts like a beaten dog, too old and lost to trust anymore. Why did no one take care of her lovely home?

Lucy fits in easily, makes friends quickly. Peter doesn't seem to realize, acts as if everything is the same, as if everything is still his. And Ed—who knows with Ed anymore?

Susan treks up the beach frowning.


	2. Middles

**The Quieter Kingdom**

2 Middles

_"You're gonna need a little miracle, some sort of saving grace…"_

It's that horrid corset that gave it away. The sickness that had plagued her every morning for the past weeks she had just taken as a sign of too much wine with the courtiers all those late, late nights. It did seem obvious in hindsight that she had not had her monthly bleed, but really, who had the time to keep track?

But when the corset that had been giving her such trouble recently snapped around her growing waist, it was undeniable. Oh dear. She'd have to order up a larger corset. A larger dress, too.

What _would_ Caspian say?


	3. Ends

**The Quieter Kingdom**

3 Ends

_"I'm coming to carry you home…"_

Though the three of them don't necessarily expect it, they're hardly surprised.

They don't hear the end.

The sounds of England fade even before the train's wheels begin to screech, before the other passengers begin screaming. The see sparks and flames beyond the window across, but Narnia is already embracing them.

They sit patiently, calm, older than old having lived lifetimes over. The sounds go, then the colors slowly fade away. The smell of ash and rubber is last, lingering.

They don't have to look at each other. They know they are all going. Home is where the heart is.


	4. Insides

**The Quieter Kingdom**

4 Insides

_"We harbored oceans of guilt…"_

Edmund is the best at politics. Peter is too righteous, too brash. Susan is too flighty and distracted— and Lucy! Dear Lucy is far too innocent, too pure for the impure art.

It's clever Ed who can dig into the heart of negotiations. Observant Edmund who never misses anyone's true intentions. Wise Edmund can twist words so that they are honeyed for any listener.

He is praised by all for his intellect and insight. He protects Narnia through sword and word and is loved for it.

It makes him sick. He has no pride in his knowledge of human nature.


	5. Outsides

**The Quieter Kingdom**

5 Outsides

"_I smell her in my sheets you see, like she's sleeping next to me…"_

Caspian hates it when she wears crimson dresses. She used to walk into the ballroom feeling majestic, stunning in gold and maroon and he'd ignore her, dance with her only when necessary. When her night shift was scarlet, he'd sleep with his back to her.

It would hurt her. Ruby was the color of love, of passion. She wore it for him!

One day, he quietly explained. Red was not a color he ever wanted to see splayed across his loved ones. Red belonged in his world of violence and war, not on his beloved. It reminded him of blood.


	6. Hours

**The Quieter Kingdom**

6 Hours

"_Lookin' like we got a clear horizon…"_

She leaves at midday with all her wisdom, all her beauty, and all her kin. She leaves him with an open-mouthed kiss and an open ending. She leaves him unfulfilled with an empty crown.

Aslan watches him throughout the coronation, and Caspian knows but cannot force himself to meet the Lion's gaze.

He leaves the festivities early and no one stops him. He locks himself up in his room for—how long?—keeping the curtains drawn. Not a soul disturbs him and he feels alone.

Aslan comes for him at twilight. "Come Majesty. You are sole ruler of Narnia now."


	7. Days

**The Quieter Kingdom**

7 Days

_"So I drank red wine till my teeth turned blue…"_

Susan doesn't remember the first party. She vaguely remembers the first boy, but both the parties and the boys started piling up so quickly that everything is just a hazy blur, and her memories are all accented with the sweet taste of champagne on the tip of her tongue.

She does remember Peter's reaction the first night she spilled into the house hours after her curfew had passed. He was incensed, talking so quickly her head spun faster than it already was spinning.

She breezed past him swiftly that night with a curt, "You rule no one here, _King_ Peter."


	8. Weeks

**The Quieter Kingdom**

8 Weeks

_"A thousand lights would line the street and none of them would lead to me…"_

Peter is drawing in class, soon after the adventure with Caspian, when it hits him. His history instructor drones on about King Louis XIV and ballet, and Peter realizes in this world he is not a king and he has no kingdom of his own.

That night, the radio screams to him about a war he is not engaged in. His wilted Susan and the dismal weather serve as terrible reminders of a golden land and finery beyond compare. He misses his sword at his hip.

Lucy, silently watching, finally takes his hand and leads him to a small church.


	9. Months

**The Quieter Kingdom**

9 Months

"_Oh when our time comes, we'll meet in the bright atmosphere…"_

Her first reaction to _his_ first reaction is apprehension and fear—intensified. She was already worried about telling him and then! And then the dolt has the nerve to sit there all shocked.

Caspian, who has reflexes unmatched on a battlefield, sits stunned and silent. What…just happened? As far as he was aware this was supposed to be a simple bedtime snack of milk and cake. Then she had just gone and blurted out _that_. _What_ just happened?

"Caspian?" she asks slowly.

"When…when, when?" he breathes out.

"He—or she—will be born this spring, Majesty…_Father_…" she smiles at him.


	10. Years

**The Quieter Kingdom**

10 Years

"_I remember what I heard the night before, told me to help make the world a better place…"_

Edmund studies history and politics steadily through school. He makes it his personal mission to understand every loophole, find every flaw. He hopes to go into law one day.

In England, he is too young to fight with anything other than knowledge. But then, for him, knowledge has always been the best tool and a driving force.

Peter cleans up his act and eventually becomes head boy at school. As usual, Ed is beside him helping make changes, enforce policies, and bind the student population in pride and integrity.

There are no thrones, but Ed still thinks it works well.


	11. Red

**The Quieter Kingdom**

11 Red

"_I'll watch your eyes fading out, leaving hope for better days…"_

Lucy is dancing with the nymphs and Ed is talking avidly with the dwarves when Susan gets up, brushes of her skirt, and goes off to search for her older brother. It is not unlike him to go off on his own during the celebrations which top off a victorious battle.

Still, she'd like to know how he is doing.

She finds him on a hill, overlooking the battlefield, turned away from his castle and his people. He is on his knees, back bent and head hung low.

She goes to say something but stops. The Magnificent King is crying.


	12. Orange

**The Quieter Kingdom**

12 Orange

"_When my memories fail me one day, the one of you will never ever fade…"_

Lucy feels old and young all at once in England. Sometimes she doesn't understand why everyone's so upset. Sometimes she thinks they don't understand how to be grateful for what they have. She, herself, has the finest siblings in the world. Her faraway father sends letters as often as his can, long and messy but full of love. Her mother tucks her in to bed every night with an adoring kiss.

After school she picks the best buttercups to bring home to Susan. Susan sets them down on her dresser and picks up her hairbrush.

Peter scoffs angrily, "Why bother?"


	13. Yellow

**The Quieter Kingdom**

13 Yellow

"_Arise, arise to a fever that's so strong you don't know your head from your heart…"_

She wears a lemon-colored gown, drastically unadorned. The sight of her spills over him like warm butter melts in his mouth. He feels flushed and is instantly aware of his stomach and head—both full of wine.

Her hair is long, loose, the color of straw and just as straight.

Forgetting propriety sounds ideal. (Oh, how she dances!)

He wants to ask Susan her name, to ask Ed to talk to the diplomats in his place. He wants to take her hand and take her away. Take her for his, but…

A High King's heart should belong solely to Narnia.


	14. Green

**The Quieter Kingdom**

14 Green

"_If you want better things, then I want you to have them…"_

It's raining when Ed and Lucy return. Peter is away at school and their parents are at some social function. They come in brimming with their sea-tales. Susan greets them alone and offers a cup of tea to each, which they gladly accept.

Susan half-listens as her siblings chatter, her ears snagging every time a certain name is mentioned, as coarse embroidery thread catches upon fine linens.

Her pale hands tremble as their stories continue, and her eyes quietly dim as they describe the beauty of the star-daughter.

Ramandu's daughter glows brighter than a queen of Narnia, even in words.


	15. Blue

**The Quieter Kingdom**

15 Blue

"_You lose yourself in your thoughts and you start to smile…"_

There's nothing to do, so the four children decide to sit in the spare room, fiddling with various small activities. Peter sketches, Susan knits, Lucy plays with dolls and Edmund…Edmund sits and daydreams against the plaster-white wall.

Though the first three seem preoccupied, they're just going through the motions and really, they are all daydreaming.

"Remember when," Edmund exclaims, and embarrassed, he slows down. "When Peter stepped on that Duchess's foot while dancing and everyone pulled swords on everyone, it got so bloody heated?"

They laugh, and Lucy stands and checks, but the back of the wardrobe still won't give.


	16. Purple

**The Quieter Kingdom**

16 Purple

"_Tomorrow's wounds are far and better left undressed…"_

Lucy comes to remember her first kiss through a dream. She wakes up, suddenly small and alone, in England. Susan has not yet come to bed; she's at a dinner party.

He was a squire, and he had found a friend in the Valiant Queen. She cared little about his position, and he also learned to care not. When he kissed her, he was surprised by the passion she allowed him. Then she went rigid and ran.

His last gift to her: a mark on her neck. She told her brothers it was a wayward strike in a fencing match.


	17. Brown

**The Quieter Kingdom**

17 Brown

"_That your shoulders are frozen, cold as the night…"_

Caspian fantasizes as the horse trots leisurely. The party is tired, and they are searching for a clear campsite in the woods. The sun has just started to fall and the four rulers of the Golden Age shine in the golden light like no other people of this world.

With a small smile, he imagines getting lost, taking the white hand of a queen and leading her away from this, noise, people and war.

She would be radiant and gentle and _his_ under the red sky.

He'd push her up against a tree trunk and—

He stops himself and blushes.


	18. Black

**The Quieter Kingdom**

18 Black

"_You reach a page where ease and sympathy collide…"_

She's drunk and Peter's had quite enough. Thank god Lucy's asleep; because it breaks her heart every single time Susan comes home like this.

Ed walks into the den calmly, hands in his pockets. Susan's poured herself a glass of red wine and is enjoying it hastily in the dark.

"Hello!" she giggles. He gives her a long, hard look, expressionless but intense and her Cheshire grin fades into a pout. "What? You're not going to preach like Peter, are you?"

Ed chooses not to respond and pours himself a glass. His eyes are colorless and unreadable in the night.


	19. White

**The Quieter Kingdom**

19 White

"_I trace my best steps back to you, dear…"_

The two kings are jovial, alight with the rapture of the hunt. Their queens follow behind, amused and half-exasperated.

"Really now," Susan mutters to Lucy, "as if this was most important!"

"And most fun," Lucy grumbles back, but still she cannot hold back her smile.

The deer gleams brighter than the snow, brighter than the light of the small monument (a lamp post!), and beckons the party closer. It turns to look at its predators before darting into the thick pine trees, lost to royal eyes.

Peter grins at his siblings behind him, and in a grand voice: "Shall we?"


	20. Colorless

**The Quieter Kingdom**

20 Colorless

"_Yours is the name that bears repeating…"_

Aslan and King Edmund share a glance and with a nod, Edmund slips away. He follows the heavy guard surrounding the prisoner down to the dungeons to perform some unspoken task of the great Lion's.

King Peter has had a long and stressful day and he's fed up with secrets. With a flourish of his robes, he marches up to Aslan to demand to be let in on it, but he's stopped by the great stare he encounters.

Aslan's eyes are wide and deep, and Peter sees himself within their steady gaze. He is immediately shamed by his own pettiness.


	21. Friends

**The Quieter Kingdom**

21 Friends

"_There are days the wind will carry us, and days we'll have to row…"_

Lucy sends word to him at two. He's been in the comfortable tearoom, alone, since noon when they were to have lunch.

The maidservant looks at him kindly and pityingly as she delivers the note. His good nature and patience allow him to accept the note and her look with a smile, even though he is hungry and tired.

"Dear Mr. Tumnus," the message reads, "Please forgive my terrible manners! These negotiations are taking longer than I expected. I beg you not to stay and wait, but please eat before you go! Can we reschedule? All my sorry love, Lucy."


	22. Enemies

**The Quieter Kingdom**

22 Enemies

"_And you wax and wane, your heavenly gravity pulling me gradually…"_

Aslan is great enough, grand enough so that Edmund finds he can both love and hate Him. There is room for a spectrum of emotion, joy through resentment. Ed does not question his faith in the Lion. He has already been tested and proven himself. Just as Aslan has proven Himself. But there are times…

…times when the logical and just king feels that the expectations placed upon himself and his kin are unfair.

They are only human after all. Being a Narnian and a Son of Adam and a Majesty all as well does not change the simple fact.


	23. Lovers

**The Quieter Kingdom**

23 Lovers

"_Now I don't wonder anymore…"_

She plays the game well and hard and fast. It excites her, flusters her, flushes her as an upbeat waltz would. She circles her prey and he circles his. Her lips are red and perfect, her smile white and perfect, her eyes alight and perfect.

This is it! His push matches her pull; his advances never fail her expectations.

Rabadash gives her a rush that none of the others ever did. He too, plays the game well, hard, and fast. She allows herself, for the first time, the thought…

Silly of her, really, to have thought it was a game.


	24. Family

**The Quieter Kingdom**

24 Family

"_Here is the law of the long walk home…"_

Narnia took everything from her. She was right to hate it, discard it as a childish game. It took her first wonderment, her childhood. It took her first kiss, her first love. It took her virginity, along with her innocence. It took her first kill, and showed her what true war was. Not broadcasts on radios, but good men and Narnians falling left and right, and for what?

Really, she thinks to herself, that's the worst part. She can't remember why it was all so important.

And now Peter, Ed, and Lucy are gone. And that's another thing Narnia took.


	25. Strangers

**The Quieter Kingdom**

25 Strangers

"_In a halo of electric light, I swear I saw your face…"_

It's nearing dusk. Polly is on her knees, stretching across the picnic blanket to return runaway utensils to the basket.

Digory, home for summer, had invited her to this lunch, but she had prepared everything. He, distracted by his reading, never picked up on this irony.

"Fetch that spoon?" She nods towards the object as he looks up startled by her sound.

But he continues to stare at her, lips parted, dragging in deep breaths. His eyes are bright over the forgotten book in his hands and their brilliance shakes her.

Their hands meet as they both reach for it.


	26. Teammates

**The Quieter Kingdom**

26 Teammates

"_This is the one that makes me want to go to pieces, every time…"_

Peter noticed it most at the social functions, at the Balls and Banquets. How perfectly they all fit together! How elegantly they learned to slip into their roles! Lucy—of course—Lucy brought light with her, into any room she walked into. She was wonder and grace. And Edmund always hung back to watch, but was quick to quip discreetly at any out of place nobleman. And beautiful Susan, regal and untouchable, brought the true sense of majesty out to display.

Narnia's true colors always looked best when splayed across their four bodies.

He misses Susan more and more now.

* * *

_For Fairies-Are-Real, my first reviewer of this collection. Thank you for your support._


	27. Parents

**The Quieter Kingdom**

27 Parents

"_A zealous darkness gathers on a place you often slept…"_

There is no shortage of mentors for young Edmund to admire. Though his own father is absent, he has Peter—and Aslan—to teach him the ways of the world. Through their guidance, he becomes someone good, someone better.

His mother is an unremarkable woman. He loves her, and she him, but their bond isn't as special as he supposes it could be. Susan, well, what a motherly figure she turned out to be! And there was that Witch...

As he grows, he finds their flaws. His fathers often leave, for school, for war, for what-have-you. And his mothers. Well.


	28. Children

**The Quieter Kingdom**

28 Children

"_A little room with a good view of all the sweetness out there…"_

Polly held something in her heart that Digory never found in other women. He noticed it as they grew older. He noticed her.

Their age difference was only evident for two or three awkward years, before Polly too was welcomed into the adult world. He'd have been blind not to have seen the blossoming changes. They were striking. Her youthful roundness turned into graceful angles and willowy height. Her eyes and hair darkened, and suddenly, she was a woman.

Yet, when he talked to her, he could find his Polly under the lovely veneer. She was still hope and innocence.


	29. Birth

**The Quieter Kingdom**

29 Birth

"_Let the long days make you what you'll be, and what you'll be to me…"_

He is born during the day, with her slender back arching to the same slope of the rising sun. Her screams run through the halls as the sun's light streams through the curtains.

Caspian waits quietly, watching somber handmaidens enter her bedchambers. Everything is ready for this arrival, everyone trained.

The birth is long, but smooth. The kingdom greets its heir joyously. Caspian thinks his wife glows brighter each minute she sits with Rilian.

That night he enters the nursery to the sound of her sweet lullaby. His son sleeps as she holds him, seated on a silver rocking chair.


	30. Death

**The Quieter Kingdom**

30 Death

"_Sometimes in my car I hear your voice, and there you are…"_

Peter sometimes forgets. He, Edmund, and Lucy will be sitting in his flat having a quiet evening, and he'll turn his head, expecting Susan to appear from the kitchen with a steaming pot of tea.

Edmund sometimes remembers. Winters make it easiest. A chill will blow down the lane, and with it, a shiver down his back. He can feel icicle fingers in his hair.

Susan sometimes forgets. She can occasionally walk past her siblings and believe they are just telling parts of a good storybook. Yet, she doesn't attend church anymore. The preacher's voice is too deep and familiar.


	31. Sunrise

**The Quieter Kingdom**

31 Sunrise

"_And I now know that I won't come back at all; I had a perfect fall…"_

The yellow light, muffled, still manages to creep onto her worn bedroom rug. It's not so much the light that disturbs her, not so much of anything, actually, that disturbs her. She is simply awake because she is not asleep.

The simple thoughts are the only ones she will work with currently.

She rises fluidly and goose bumps travel up her bare arms as the quilt slips away.

_A hot shower would be nice_, she thinks and busies herself with related preparations.

Simple thoughts. _Peter and Edmund and Lucy died yesterday…_

_Yes, a hot shower would be very nice, indeed._


	32. Sunset

**The Quieter Kingdom**

32 Sunset

"_I am too late, too old to die young…"_

The teacups tinkle tenderly against their saucers and he can't help but to compare them with her hands, with her. Her skin has darkened over time, and he smiles, knowing how she must hate that. It stretches delicately with any slight movement.

He tells her over his crumpet a fantastical story that he has just witnessed secondhand. Four children and their adventure. A twinkle appears in her eye but she doesn't say much.

He gulps the rest of his tea and looks down.

The tea leaves divine little but his lost chances. Still, maybe he reads some future there too.


	33. Too Much

**The Quieter Kingdom**

33 Too Much

"_You will be called to serve; your love will long be cursed…"_

He finds that it doesn't get any easier. He can vaguely recall how King Peter the Magnificent and King Edmund the Just of the Golden Age were so smooth in their transitions from battle to family to speeches to planning…

But that was a long time ago, and Caspian has forgotten some things over the years.

Did they have methods, routines, anything to get bloody carcasses out of their minds? How did those men manage to let the dead rest, wash their hands of blood?

Decades old, and Caspian still weeps and cowers at the memories of his (_Narnia's_) victories.


	34. Not Enough

**The Quieter Kingdom**

34 Not Enough

"_Everything I need to see I've seen in my dreams…"_

Twilight is generally peaceful in the Pevensie household. Now that Peter is gone at school and Edmund is steadfastly studying for his entrance exams, now that Lucy holds herself with a quiet grace, it seems that all traces of childhood are gone.

Susan is waiting for a handsome boy to pick her up for a dinner party when she finds herself going through her older brother's nightstand. She absently thumbs through the Bible she finds in its single rickety drawer.

The doorbell chimes, unsettling the tranquility of the household, and she carelessly tosses the Book away and rises to leave.


	35. Sixth Sense

**The Quieter Kingdom**

35 Sixth Sense

"_It's safe to say that if it was said, then it was meant to be said…"_

She holds her breath without realizing it. This rotting place with its decaying sun…couldn't Digory feel it, that this was all somehow wrong?

They should have left, but she couldn't seem to make herself known. Her mouth felt gagged and her tongue frozen, and she follows in muted dread behind this adventurous boy until the bell.

A panic sets in. A fleeting thought that if she were only prettier then Digory would dote on her more, see her fear now, and they could leave, but…

It's too late. The bell is rung. It shatters her. An icicle tumbling to asphalt.


	36. Smell

**The Quieter Kingdom**

36 Smell

"_This is a dream, every perception gaining speed…"_

Her kisses are soft and urgent. He feels winded, as if he is in a race and unable to keep up. It's difficult to decide whether or not he should just give up and give in…

Or whether he should roll her off and put himself on top, take charge and _take_ her…

The back of his mind whispers warnings that are unsure and half-hearted. Her brothers are but a few paces away, along with a large camp that would find his current position with their Golden Queen quite alarming.

Her breath finds his ear and he makes his decision.

* * *

_For LiRA, so that he or she can continue to find his or her own interpretations. Thank you for your reviews!_


	37. Sound

**The Quieter Kingdom**

37 Sound

"_Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn…"_

The room is dim, her eyelids half-shut, and the alcohol adds its last touch to the haze. She sees in a sepia muted spectrum. The carpet is rough and warm and burns her skin as she languorously rubs her length against it. Her fingers brush a damp spot where she must have spilled a drink earlier, or is that just tears?

The door whispers open, and she can feel Edmund's footfalls. He takers her under the arms, hoists her up. She nuzzles into him. His heart beats slowly and she wants to cry. She had forgotten what that was like.


	38. Touch

**The Quieter Kingdom**

38 Touch

"_There are words you could say that would turn me to dust…"_

Caspian tries to throw the horn off the ledge. He places it down and tries to kick it off. No matter what he does, his fist remain clutched around it tightly, his leg cramped and tight and unmoving.

If it hadn't been for the dratted horn, he wouldn't have met her. He's grateful for the help, but this has gotten to be too much, and quickly at that.

He can feel her eyes on him from behind and it's taken all that's in him not to acknowledge it until now.

Her eyes are dark and beg him not to explain.


	39. Taste

**The Quieter Kingdom**

39 Taste

"_In the hot unmoving air there are fifty stars or less…"_

"The Horses say he's begun to assemble an army. His smiths have been working through the nights, supposedly. I hardly think we can call his words 'idle threats' now, brother."

Peter says nothing to Edmund and continues to gaze out past the balcony railing towards the sea.

Ed presses on, his wine sloshing precariously in its goblet. "I know you wanted to remain diplomatic and I've tried my best, but it's futile. We shall have to do something about this."

Peter takes a sip of his own wine and nods slowly. "Yes," he says, "I suppose I have no choice."


	40. Sight

**The Quieter Kingdom**

40 Sight

"_I am born to watch you rise…"_

There was something glinting in her hair again, Ed had noticed with a small, proud smile. It was the sun. His sister, the Queen, was beautiful at this outdoor festival. Amidst the bright reds and yellows of the tents and against the green of the grass and the blue of the sky, Susan shone. Lucy grinned at the vision as well, seated next to him.

But that was long ago. As if a dream. In between her perfumed exits and drunken entrances into their home nowadays, he remembers the Golden Age. Things are much different now.

She falls like Icarus.


	41. Shapes

**The Quieter Kingdom**

41 Shapes

"_But in your morning glory all the sadness fell away…"_

She thinks she should be glad there is no thunder, but she is not. The silent lightning has a sinister effect on her bedroom. Susan's bed is empty and probably will remain so for a majority of the night.

Lucy shivers as she draws back the goose-down quilt and steps upon the creaking floorboards.

Peter's door is ajar and she pads softly inside, where he sits on his bed, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

He hasn't been expecting her long, but he knew she would come.

She settles into his embrace and cherishes this stability. Winter storms cannot touch this.


	42. Triangle

**The Quieter Kingdom**

42 Triangle

"_Curled like a question mark with everything implied…"_

First, it was amusing. It was as if the two men—boys!—were too distracted by the success of their own efforts to notice the success of the other's. Peter danced with her first. Then Edmund danced with her. Then Peter…and so on.

First, the queens laughed. Then the boys noticed each other. Peter grew aggressive and Ed grew sullen.

Susan felt that if it were to continue, it could lead to dark places. At least, a dark end to the night.

So, she slipped into Peter's arms for a dance, and Lucy into Ed's.

And the girl was forgotten!


	43. Square

**The Quieter Kingdom**

43 Square

"_I was a mountain range, and your quiet footsteps stirred my ancient veins…"_

When it began, she imagines it was something of a mosquito bite, a jittery gnat buzzing in her ear, a fly hitting her on the nose for a moment. She imagines it started insignificantly to her busy and old mind. A queen thousands of years in age finding time and energy and _thought _for a fling? With an uncrowned prince, no less! How absolutely absurd!

Susan is wise, reasonable, and reserved. She does not depart on flights of fancy. There are wars, laws, rights, and subjects to ponder.

Yet Caspian tears down careful walls and grows steadily in her mind.


	44. Circle

**The Quieter Kingdom**

44 Circle

"_All the hours collide…"_

If Peter had taken a moment to gauge his emotions at that last stand, their final battle, he would have noted that he was, perhaps unreasonably, calm. A ship frozen amidst a hurricane.

In a swirl of time and blood, lineages and generations, pasts and presents, he stands.

Still, and once again, and for the last time even, the High King of Narnia stands in Narnia.

If Peter were a sinfully proud man, he would have taken pause and reveled in the glory.

But then, if Peter were such a man, he would not have been standing where he was.


	45. Moon

**The Quieter Kingdom**

45 Moon

"_Your brimming body spilling love…"_

Every whisper of her step, every note of her voice, makes him shake, makes him quake. He feels chills as if he were immersed in a cool, deep pool. He feels his skin burn as if the sun were his crown, raining down through his hair, down his neck, his arms…

Every part of him feels clumsy, weak, and he fears if he were to pick up a sword he would look a fool.

Yet never has he felt such courage to wield a sword, to fight any foe.

She is not one of millions; she is the only one.


	46. Star

**The Quieter Kingdom**

46 Star

"_O such stormy weather from such a little thing…"_

_I've moved on_, she thinks contentedly applying her lipstick carefully. Ed and Lucy are repeating their "Dawn Treader" story to Peter—who listens much more enthusiastically— right outside her bedroom door, slightly ajar.

_What good is it, pining for an imaginary king who regards me as an ancient relic—no different than the horn he treasures?_

Her hand trembles, mars her painted line. Huffily, she snatches a napkin and wipes the stain. _So a fairy-tale princess has been found. So what?_

In this world, Henry and John and George are waiting. And she, Susan, is the life of the party.

* * *

_For Jane Willow, who always manages to pull out everything I am proud of in his/her reviews. Thank you for sticking with me!_


	47. Heart

**The Quieter Kingdom**

47 Heart

"_And given the time, and just enough wine, we'll remember every inch…"_

Some days it takes her with clawed fingers and an iron grasp. She can feel it under the smooth skin between her breasts, wedged in between the bars of her ribcage, threatening to split her straight down the middle, pressing on her tight, twisting her stomach. It makes her mind skip and stutter through thoughts; breathing becomes shallow. It brings only frustration and sadness—so much sadness. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. And there isn't any deliverance, no salvation. There is only the notion that he might feel it too.

But the fear that he does not… it remains.


	48. Diamond

48 Diamond

"_O rival, even silence stirs the blood…"_

Fingers brush her wrist and worried eyes peer into Susan's. Susan smiles her most disarming smile in reassurance. She's been daydreaming and she knows it's rude to the friends she's dining with.

"What's on your mind, Sue?"

Susan just shakes her head and glances at her crystal goblet, crude compared to finery she's _imagined_ before. How to explain she's fantasizing the riddance of a mythical creature? Short, vindictive images of a shooting star missing her intended ship deck and plunging into the cold, unforgiving sea flash behind her eyes.

Swallowed up and snuffed out like a match in a puddle.


End file.
